PoW is the mechanism used by Bitcoin and relies on the computing power of miners to establish a safe consensus, rewarding miners with cryptocurrency.

Ethereum planned to phase out PoW in favour of PoS by implementing a “difficulty bomb”, which would increase average block times until it became important to move to proof-of-stake.

EIP 1234 will be implemented in the Constantinople update, and will delay the onset of this difficulty bomb for another 12 months – giving developers time to complete work on PoS without threatening the functionality of the blockchain.

This EIP will also reduce the block rewards substantially to adjust for the delay.

Cryptocurrency holders and miners mining to a pool do not need to change anything, but users running a node will need to update to the latest version of Ethereum or risk being left behind on the older chain.

The launch of the Constantinople upgrade was set to take place on 17 January, but has since been postponed due to a security issue.

A new release date for the network update will be announced after an Ethereum developer meeting on 18 January.

Partner Content

Join the conversation
Autoload comments

Comments section policy: MyBroadband has a new article comments policy which aims to encourage constructive discussions. To get your comments published, make sure it is civil and adds value to the discussion.